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[woman 1] When I think of Barbie, I see a little white doll
with blue eyes and blonde hair and pink lips,
and just in… in all pink.
That's what I think.
[woman 2] I just found Barbie to be unrealistic.
[chuckling] Like, I remember thinking,
"Okay, so a Barbie is what I am supposed to grow into being."
Maybe when I was a grown-up, I would look like that,
but I knew my mom was a grown-up and didn't look like that,
so I was like, "Trash."
Barbie was white. You know, Ken was white. Like, that was what you saw.
So I guess when I saw a Black Barbie, I was like, "They make Black Barbies?"
[woman 3] Well, in my head,
Black Barbie came to be because somebody Black was at Mattel,
and they were like, "Wait a minute."
Rose their hand in a meeting. "Excuse me? Does anybody see the holes here?"
"This is… This is not right. There's nobody that looks like me."
And all the white people at Mattel were like,
"Oh, we never thought about that. I guess… I guess that is true."
[inhales sharply] "But who's gonna buy that? Mmm, I don't know."
And the Black person was like, "Mmm, uh, I would, and everybody I know will."
The people at Mattel were like,
"Hmm, but we need a little bit more than that. I don't know."
"We don't wanna put all this money out for something that isn't gonna sell."
And it took said Black person
to keep telling them of the value that it had.
And they finally pull the trigger.
And in my head, that's how it came to be.
[woman 4] You know what?
[laughs]
[woman 4] Documentary done.
[laughs]
["Barbie Girl" by Aqua plays]
[woman 5] OG Black Barbie is so fly.
That 'fro is perfection.
[woman 6] I said, "Wow, there's a Black Barbie."
"I want one of those."
[woman 7] If it doesn't have that brand name Barbie on it,
it's just not the same.
[woman 3] Crowning this doll as Barbie
was telling the world Black is beautiful too.
[woman 8] She represented success. She represented beauty.
I can see possibility in her for myself.
[woman 9] She's Black. She's beautiful. She's dynamite.
♪ I'm a Barbie girl in the Barbie world ♪
♪ Life in plastic, it's fantastic ♪
♪ You can brush my hair Undress me everywhere ♪
♪ Imagination, life is your creation ♪
[music stops]
[Lagueria] So in 2011, I move to LA
to expand upon my dreams of becoming a filmmaker.
I stayed with my aunt and slept in a room surrounded by dolls.
…we're gonna have on eBay.
[Lagueria] I hate dolls.
Okay. Yeah.
[Lagueria] But my aunt loves them, so I decided to find out why.
My name is Beulah Mae Mitchell from Fort Worth, Texas.
I was born in 1938. May 15th, 1938.
[Lagueria] And the Civil Rights Movement came about in the '60s.
So you see how long I lived in that.
Things, uh, were so different.
As a little girl, I… I went to work in a white person's home,
cooking, at the age of 13.
I went, uh, from my first grade to ninth grade in a Black school.
At that time, you couldn't vote. They… they had, uh…
It was something like "pay to vote." [chuckles]
When… when I came up, you had to pay to vote.
[Lagueria] And so, do you think, because you grew up, like, in those times,
for some reason, when you see dolls that are Black dolls--
Oh, I was so fascinated to see Black dolls.
My mother loved dolls, and I love dolls
because I just love fashion and pretty dolls, pretty people.
They were just gorgeous.
I made my own doll with a… a jam jar
and put the rope in it and comb hair and curl it and things
when I was a child.
And it was fun for us to have that kind of doll.
We used… Even though we had a real doll, we still liked our jar dolls
with the hair that we could comb and… and… and fix.
[both laugh]
I can't remember having a Black… Black doll when I was a little girl.
[Lagueria] Not even a Black baby doll?
Not even a Black baby doll.
I'm almost sure all my dolls… For Christmas, we got white dolls.
When you were seven or eight, did you really, really want a Black doll?
Did it ever--
I didn't… It didn't occur to me. It was just a doll.
So when people see me now,
and I have more Black dolls than I have white dolls,
now it's no big thing to people because they expect it. [chuckles]
[upbeat music plays]
[Lagueria] Listening to my aunt talk about growing up playing with white dolls,
I was like, "Okay, I played with white dolls too."
Reluctantly, of course.
But playing with a Black doll never occurred to her.
Hmm. I wonder if it occurred to me as little Lagueria.
What a perplexing thing,
to look in the social mirror and not see yourself.
It's funny.
My aunt and I are generations apart,
yet we share a similar experience.
My name is Maxine Waters.
I'm a member of Congress, and I've collected Black dolls.
I have 12 siblings.
We were poor, and so, uh, we were given toys at Christmastime.
And we had to go to some place that was designated
for poor people to come and get their toys.
And so, for my sisters, I would always make sure that they got a doll,
and I would say, "Oh, I don't need one."
[Lagueria] Were they Black dolls?
There were no Black dolls.
They were all white dolls.
We didn't know a lot or think a lot, uh, about it at that time.
But as you get a better knowledge and understanding
about yourself and about people of color,
I began to understand how important it was to have a Black doll
and to have someone who looked like me.
Collecting Black dolls, I think, became very important to us.
To say, uh, that we liked them, we appreciated them,
we could afford them, and we were gonna have them.
My mom definitely loves dolls.
She has her own doll collection of all kinds of dolls.
I always think it's because there were no Black dolls when my mother was a child.
So she's been fascinated with them.
If you've gone your whole life and never seen anything made in your own image,
it's gotta be a powerful moment for you as a woman.
In the Americas, there were many places that had banned Black dolls.
And so people were making dolls that look like pillows or quilts.
Or that were made with calico fabric to represent Black dolls.
In the Caribbean, people had something called Topsy-Turvy dolls,
where on one side, you had a doll with a long skirt that was a white doll,
and then you could flip it over and pull the skirt down,
and you had a Black doll.
[Beulah] I do remember seeing Black dolls, but they were like Aunt Jemima dolls.
[Lagueria] Mm-hmm.
-[Beulah] You know what I'm saying? -[Lagueria] I do.
They didn't have no pretty dolls. [chuckles]
We know, at least, that they existed if for no other reason
than Kenneth and Mamie Clark did an experiment,
uh, with, uh, Black children, asking their doll preference,
and had Black dolls to use in that experiment.
[endearing music playing]
[man] We put them on a table.
Two white and two brown dolls,
exactly the same in every respect except color.
We put no clothes on them except a diaper.
And we asked the children a number of very simple questions.
"Show me the white doll."
"Show me the colored doll."
We then asked them preference questions.
Such as, "Show me the doll you'd like to play with."
"Show me or give me the doll that's a nice doll."
"Show me the doll that's a bad doll."
And we found that the majority of Black children at that time
did, in fact, ascribe the positive characteristics
to the white doll
and the negative characteristics to the brown doll.
I then asked the question, "Now show me the doll that's like you."
Some of those children looked at me as if I were the devil himself
for putting them in that predicament.
It was the beginning of psychologists' understanding
of, uh, the terrible damage that's done to human beings
by racial rejection.
And that sent a shock wave, I think, through the Black community.
Uh, understanding very thoroughly,
uh, that little Black girls did not have self-esteem,
did not think of themselves as beautiful, and would prefer to have a white doll.
[Patricia] And the outcome of that test,
many of the judges on the Supreme Court
in the Brown v. Board of Education decision
said it was the piece of evidence that pushed them over.
Not the statistics,
not the unequal supplies going to the schools,
not the slipshod construction of the schools.
None of that was as convincing as what they got from the Clark test.
So, as a result of that,
we got the Supreme Court decision
in Brown v. Board of Education
that desegregates the school.
[upbeat music plays]
[Beulah] In 1953,
I moved to Los Angeles with my mom.
In '55, my sister got married in July.
Her sister-in-law worked for Mattel,
and she said, "Do you all wanna work during the summer?"
Because they were hiring kids in college.
You really were supposed to have been 18, but I put my age up and got the job.
[upbeat music continues]
This is me.
Uh, spinning the jack-in-the-box.
It says, "Eleanor Ruiz also secures the top and bottom to the Jack body,
and Beulah Mitchell, at machine, gives the Jack a spin."
I was called a "spinner," so I got paid a little more
for doing this particular job.
[upbeat music continues]
This is me, and this is my sister.
We started the same day.
This is Ruth Handler and Elliot Handler.
We worked for the original owners, and it was like…
They called themselves a mom-and-pop shop.
We just loved, uh, Ruth 'cause she was such a strong woman.
Ruth Handler, she went overseas
and came back and wanted to make this doll with breasts.
We was just shocked.
And I was on the first line because I had became a… a lead girl.
♪ Barbie, you're beautiful ♪
♪ You make me feel ♪
♪ My Barbie doll is really real ♪
[Beulah] She named those dolls Barbie and Ken after her two children.
I remember them when they were small. They're a little younger than I am.
This book was written by Ruth Handler.
And in this book,
uh, she has my name.
[Lagueria] So how did you strike up this friendship with your boss?
Oh, because she was always personable.
I worked on the lines, and she would come through and watch us.
And we would be working so fast, and she would say,
"Do you have any suggestions of what I should do?"
She would ask us questions.
"Do you think that this doll would be a good seller?"
"What else do you think we should do to make this doll work?"
She thought as much we thought as she did the people in the office
because we were making the toys.
In '60 or '61, they're saying, "Well, we want a Black Barbie."
She said, "Well, good. We'll see."
Asking Ruth Handler
to consider incorporating a Black Barbie into the product line,
that was a little act of revolution.
We often take for granted the generations before us,
and the steps that they took are often remarkable.
In the '60s, Mattel created
friends for Barbie, uh, that were Black.
Francie, the original doll, came out in 1966.
She was marketed as Barbie's cousin.
In 1967, Mattel offered a Black version of Francie.
Christie came out in 1968.
[woman 10] I was most proud of my Christie doll.
They have her labeled
as Barbie's babysitter and best friend.
I'm like, "She can't be both."
She can be the best friend, but she ain't nobody's babysitter.
[woman 11] The features were not of us.
The cheekbones, the nose, the lips, the eyes, everything.
So it was as if, "Okay, we can just make the doll a darker skin,
and that should suffice."
[Virginia] And then Julia came along.
Julia was fashioned after the first African American woman
who was the lead in a television show,
and it was Diahann Carroll.
Clinic, Mrs. Baker speaking.
To me, Diahann Carroll as Julia
was the first Black woman to lead a television series.
And so it had that significance for me.
I was already starting to work in television, and I just loved her.
I thought Julia Baker was, like, the best.
I had Christie dolls.
I had the Cara dolls.
I had, like, three Cara dolls.
They all looked exactly the same, but they were doing very different things.
I don't think I ever thought of Cara and Christie as not Barbie.
You know, they were what Barbie meant to me.
But to find out later that those dolls were not Barbie,
and very specifically considered not Barbie,
was interesting to me.
[funky music plays]
[sirens wail]
[woman 12] Lou Smith and Robert Hall, who had witnessed the Watts Rebellion,
wanted to do something to address the poverty and unemployment
that was taking place in South LA in the Watts area.
They devised this organization called Operation Bootstrap
to provide job training.
[funky music continues]
[man] Opening Blacks up
to the technological world that they haven't been involved in.
Yes, that's our job.
Showing cats that there's better ways to use their talent
than hustling on the corner.
Yes, that's our job.
And so, through Operation Bootstrap,
there was a number of businesses that formed.
And one of the most, uh, successful of those efforts
was the Shindana Toy Company.
My father thought Black kids needed a positive self-image,
and he decided to make Black dolls that look like Black people.
And he talked the owners of Mattel, Elliot and Ruth Handler,
out of $200,000 to start the toy company.
Lou Smith was, uh, ahead of his time, and he was an activist.
And when they produced the toys, that was an accomplishment.
When they made the deal with Mattel,
uh, that was considered a great achievement.
They gave them everything to work with.
They sent people from our company over there
to show them how to make Black dolls.
[Yolanda] Folks at Mattel introduced them
to some of the manufacturing processes that they utilized.
There was an investment in really wanting the Shindana toy factory to succeed.
[funky music continues]
So this is Baby Nancy,
and she was born in 1968.
So you could buy Baby Nancy with the natural
if you wanted the doll with the natural.
And then she had short, curly hair.
[Lagueria chuckles]
And this is her original outfit.
They were very much
about recognizing features
that were much more accurate
than what we were originally seeing with Mattel dolls.
[Yolanda] She was really stamped with a level of authenticity.
She's also the only Black doll
that's inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame.
[Billie] So this is Disco Wanda.
Disco Wanda was made in the '70s.
[Yolanda] Shindana produced their version of a fashion doll.
Not only would kids receive toys, they would also receive a little booklet.
In the booklet,
you have Nurse Wanda, Ballerina Wanda.
You have the Airline Attendant Wanda.
They were all based on real people.
[Lagueria] Real Black women?
On real Black women.
[Yolanda] Those dolls were modeled after local women and their careers.
And they wanted to tap into careers
that made sense for young Black girls in particular.
[Amitis] The Shindana Toy Company made dolls and toys accessible
to all children,
and they were all adorable and wonderful to play with.
I think it was due to the people that worked at Shindana
and who ran the company.
[Lou Smith] The entire labor force came from South Central LA.
99% of the workers from Shindana could almost walk to work.
Although parents are buying these dolls,
and they may not be there in the factory to see that,
they have a sense of that.
Ultimately, the Shindana Toy Company would become
the largest producer of Black toys during the '70s and early '80s.
It became this amazing proof of concept, basically,
that, you know, there is a market, it is viable,
and there is a way to produce product
that that market really wants and really appreciates.
By the time the '80s rolled around,
bigger corporations started to tap into their model.
And eventually, by 1983, it was… It closed down.
[Beulah] I worked 14 years in the factory,
and in '69,
I was able to go into the office.
I always kinda told myself,
"Well, they needed somebody that… of color."
Because they had one Black guy
that was a programmer up on the sixth floor,
and I was the second person being Black.
I always loved people, and everybody felt comfortable with me.
I'm just that type of person. [laughs]
They hired a Black girl, Kitty Black.
They got her from Trade-Tech.
She came in as a designer for the clothes.
Our first Black designer.
I am Kitty Black Perkins.
I designed the first Black Barbie doll for Mattel toys.
I answered a blind ad.
I went for the interview,
and I left there thinking,
"I have to have this job. I can't do anything else."
They asked me to bring one design.
Take a doll, dress it,
bring the flat patterns back,
as well as the sewn garment.
I came back with six designs
instead of one.
[Patricia] What Beulah Mae did,
she laid the groundwork for Kitty to come in as a professional.
They're… acclimated to the presence
of a strong, competent Black woman in the workplace.
That enables the next step,
which is a strong, competent Black woman as a designer.
Whether or not Kitty would have been welcomed
had Beulah not been there,
I'm not sure you can say.
I met Beulah probably the second day after I was hired at Mattel.
We were proud of her because she… she drove a sports car,
and she matched our Black Barbie. [laughs]
We thought she was a Black Barbie.
A… a real Black Barbie.
-How you doing? -Kitty!
Oh.
You look great. How are you?
[Beulah] Blessed and highly-favored to be here.
Okay, girl.
-I belong to the CRS club. -What is that?
Can't remember shit.
[Kitty laughs]
I'm a member too. [laughs]
-Well, I was at Mattel for 28 years. -[Lagueria] Okay.
But during that whole time, I knew Beulah.
[Beulah] Straight out of Trade-Tech. First Black designer for the Barbie.
Put Black Barbie before the Barbies,
and she did excellent.
You know, those days were so exciting for me.
And everybody who was Black in the company,
uh, didn't matter what their position was, and it was very few,
was coming to find me.
[laughs]
Which I thought was so nice.
My name is Shonda Rhimes.
I'm a television producer, a writer,
and I'm also the first woman to create three television dramas
that have achieved the 100-episode milestone.
Somebody has to be the first. And I was never excited to be the first.
It felt like a burden.
I felt like if I didn't succeed, would anybody else get a chance behind me?
That felt important.
Would they ever put a Black woman in a lead on a television show again?
Those things were very important.
My name is Misty Copeland. I am a professional ballerina.
I'm the first Black woman
to ever be promoted to the position of principal ballerina
in American Ballet Theatre's now 80-year history.
I met Susan Fales-Hill,
who was on the board
at American Ballet Theatre.
Incredible Black woman who became my mentor
and started to really just kind of open my eyes up to…
It's about bringing Black women together and supporting one another.
My name is Ibtihaj Muhammad.
I am an Olympic athlete.
I'm a fencer, and I'm also a Barbie.
Because I grew up being the only African American,
being the only kid who wore a hijab,
sometimes, even, like, in a sport like fencing
and fencing a weapon like saber, sometimes being the only girl,
I really learned early on that I had to show up for myself
and not be fearful of being the only one.
[Misty] It's a protest. [chuckles]
It's a protest just being in a Black body and being on that stage,
a part of a history that does not include you,
that wasn't built for you.
And so I felt like this pressure fueled me to keep going
because just stepping on that stage, uh, could possibly change one person's life.
By the time I became a soloist and a principal,
it was like this feeling of "If I don't make it to this place,
when will there ever be another Black girl in the company
given this opportunity?"
And it became, like, you know, relentless. I was like, "I have to do this."
[Beulah] She was our first Black designer.
I can remember, uh, when Kitty called us together
and she said,
"Don't you think they should be able to make a doll of Black features?"
And that was on her mind.
I do think that there is damage done
when you force children of color to play with white dolls.
My name is Monica Bailey.
I am a mother of three.
I grew up in Inglewood, California, and was mostly raised in Arizona.
We were in a very small town, so trying to even find spaces
that were Black spaces was very difficult.
Mostly, the dolls I played with were white dolls.
So I would literally get some hair grease that my mother would put in my hair
and put it in there from the scalp to the root,
comb it, try to make it kinky, nappy,
to make it look like me a little bit.
Even though I know it wasn't,
it made me feel like it… it was connecting me in some kind of way.
The eyes that were blue, I would get a colored crayon or a marker
and literally color the eyes brown.
The Barbies I had, they were white Barbies,
and I felt like I needed to look like them.
But having that,
um, to be a standard made me feel,
myself and other Black girls, feel inadequate.
I was like, "I need to look like them. I need to be them."
I remember that. I'm getting chills thinking about that right now.
It was very…
[exhales slowly]
Yeah.
Wow! I wasn't expecting that!
[chuckles]
Whoo.
[sighs]
I just remember, um,
not feeling like I was beautiful.
[voice breaks] Because of my skin
and my hair texture.
And being around people that did not look like me
and didn't accept me.
It was very trying.
It was very trying. It was very hard.
Your mind is…
and everything that you, like, conceive
to be true or to be not true,
you learn it as a child.
And if these Barbies are not representative
of what our real reality looks like,
then what are you really saying to these kids?
Like, "You don't exist."
[Kitty] When I designed this doll,
there was a need for the little Black girl
to… to really have something she could play with
that looked like her.
[gentle music plays]
[Kitty] I wanted her just to reflect the total look of a Black woman.
With the regular Barbie, um, the gown was always full,
and the hair was always long.
Well, I wanted her to be the complete opposite of Barbie
and the complete opposite of Christie
in that I gave her bold colors, bold jewelry, short hair,
and a wrapped skirt that could actually show skin.
One of my favorite singers was Diana Ross.
My fashion that I did
kinda looked like something that Diana Ross would wear.
There was another hair designer
named Mellie Phillips,
and she was Black,
so we came up with the short natural.
I had a short natural myself at the time.
We had a designer in sculpturing, Abol. He was a man of color.
We made her lips a little bit fuller.
We made her nose a little bit wider.
Her skin is a little bit lighter than the darkest that we could have done.
It was really a preference,
and I preferred that color.
I knew that Black Barbie was different.
I never realized the magnitude.
♪ I'm coming ♪
♪ Out ♪
♪ I'm coming out ♪
♪ I want the world to know Got to let it show ♪
♪ I'm coming out… ♪
[Yolanda] I can still feel that sense of joy that I felt
when I first was introduced to Black Barbie.
OG Black Barbie is so fly.
That 'fro is perfection.
She's about to hit, like, nightlife,
has a really sick red dress.
She has melanin, for real, in her skin. [laughs] She's a little brown girl.
[Lagueria] And so when did you first fall in love with Black Barbie?
When I first got one in my hand. [laughs]
It says, "She's Black. She's beautiful. She's dynamite."
That was a pride, for sure, to see your first Black Barbie.
[Patricia] For me, the step forward that was made
when they called the Black doll Barbie,
and not Francie or another name,
was it allowed the Black girl
to be the heroine of the story.
In all of the imagined play with Barbie, she's the center of attention.
She's the belle of the ball.
She's who you would want to be.
And I don't think in anyone's life
you should wanna be the belle's best friend.
It's just a sort of acknowledgment of your existence,
and that you're here, and that you are valued.
Crowning the… this… this doll as Barbie…
The fight for "No, no, no, no, we can't just call this
a fashion doll or a…"
"This is a Barbie too."
…was telling the world Black is beautiful too.
So I'm so grateful that we are included now
in the legacy of that.
There was, within my family, within the adults,
the kinds of discussions about whether this was a step forward.
Um, whether she looked like the doll
that you would want to give a member of the family.
And I hate to be reductive, but it's all about the hair.
We did do a focus group.
Some of the comments from the moms
were about the hair being short rather than long
or the dress being slim rather than full.
They didn't know whether this was done intentional
or whether it was just slighting.
Mattel, at that time, invited a, um,
child psychologist
into Mattel, uh, to discuss the whole doll.
It was about the same feeling that the moms had had.
But when the child psychologist found out that the designer was Black,
it all went away.
[Lagueria] It took 21 years for one Black fashion doll
to be worthy of the Barbie name.
Dang, it's a doll, y'all.
Keeping it real, I didn't know Black Barbie existed
until my aunt told me her story.
And that got me thinking. "Do people know about Black Barbie?"
-Can I see her? -[Lagueria] Yes.
This is one of her outfits.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I actually have seen her
'cause I thought she looked exactly like Diana Ross.
Yeah, I have seen her. Thanks.
Whoo, I missed that. She's a little light-skinned.
[laughs]
Oh, like a Foxy Brown.
-[Lagueria] Yeah. -Yes, yes, she looks very '70s.
This fit is cute. The, like, off-the-shoulder cutout.
-This is cute. -[Lagueria] Yeah, yeah.
And this is their version of a 'fro, I guess, right? [laughs]
I barely knew that she existed. I do remember seeing a picture of her.
For what time it was,
I definitely didn't see it in the context of "It's the first."
I don't know if I ever saw the official first one.
So maybe I… I didn't get that one at my store. [laughs]
I never saw it out in the market.
Here I am now in my forties. I'm like, "It existed all along?"
It's nice to see that they were creating a replica
of what Black women looked more like at that time,
at least from the neck up.
But I never saw that. So I'm just disappointed I missed out on it.
[Lagueria] You know, on that note came another question.
"Did they market Black Barbie?"
I don't think I ever really saw the commercials.
I must have because I watched Saturday morning cartoons,
but I don't think I really ever saw the commercials.
If you saw a Barbie commercial, it was Barbie was white.
[Patricia] If Black dolls were promoted as the most beautiful and hot commodity,
they would have sold just as well, if not better,
than the white Barbie.
I think I got a knockoff one.
I don't know if my parents got me the…
Because they were hard… They were still hard to get.
I think that if Mattel really knew how well it was gonna do,
more, um, effort would have been put into maybe creating
a world of Black dolls rather than just one.
[lively music plays]
["Control" by Janet Jackson plays]
[Lagueria] Um, I'm kind of low-key loving this story
about my aunt, Kitty, Black Barbie,
and just talking to people about Black dolls.
Okay, so I'm not saying I love dolls now,
but, you know, I'm learning why they're not only important to her,
they're important in general.
And it's got me thinking about little Lagueria
and how she and her sister used to play.
We used to play by putting slips over our head,
pretending it was long, blonde hair.
As kids, we didn't understand what that meant.
But now it gives me a lot more to think about when it comes to play
and what it would mean
to have a world of Black Barbies.
-[girls] Ooh! -[woman] Shani is here!
♪ Shani, Shani You walk, you smile ♪
♪ Who, girl? You, girl You got style… ♪
[woman] Here's Shani and friends.
♪ So hot ♪
♪ We love all the looks you've got ♪
I also did a Black line of dolls called Shani.
That particular line was as a result of
the success of Black Barbie.
I started collecting Barbie dolls in college.
When I saw Shani, there… That was a new horizon.
Well, they had Asha, who was about your complexion,
and she had keener features.
They had Nichelle, who looks exactly like my Aunt Toosley, my mom's cousin.
And she was super dark.
And then they had Shani, who is, like, you know, just a pretty brown girl.
It was revolutionary.
[Kitty] When they released the dolls,
the introduction to that
was a huge production that they did in New York.
♪ And I wonder ♪
-♪ Wonder ♪ -♪ Wonder ♪
♪ Who's ♪
♪ Loving… ♪
They wanted a doll that… that had several different shades,
as the Afro-American community does.
I remember there was an article in The Village Voice.
They went on for pages and pages about these dolls
and how important this new thing was.
And I saved that article. I have it somewhere in storage.
[woman 13] Shani is going to be our entry into the ethnic marketplace.
It's going to be heavily marketed,
which is also a first
because currently, there isn't
any African American doll line
that receives its own commercial, that receives print ads and support,
that will receive the PR focus
and promotional tie-ins
that we've developed.
My name is Isis McKenzie Johnson.
I initially fell in love with Black Barbie when I was a teenager.
Coming from Watts in South Central LA, there was so much hardship.
You didn't have time to focus on vanity. You just wanna get through the day.
Then when my family finally moved out of the inner city to Rancho Cucamonga,
there wasn't that many people of color that were there.
So I was called "nigger." I was called "chocolate bar."
I was called so many derogatory words and names to describe me
because of the way I looked.
[sighs]
[tuts]
Oh my gosh, I'm totally ruining my makeup. Um…
[sniffles]
And there was nothing I could relate to when I would watch television.
That I could associate myself
and find an escape from the reality
that was beating me up 'cause of the way I look.
Most kids escape to television,
but whenever I watched TV, everyone was still white.
When I finally start seeing a few shows where there were Black people,
they were always poor.
It was always a reminder of
the struggle is always gonna be real for you.
So when Black Barbies finally came on the market,
she represented success, she represented beauty,
and I could see possibility in her for myself.
Those little white girls had…
They could see possibility in their Barbies.
I would look at that Barbie, and I would try to see possibility,
but I'd be reminded through my reality that that's not your possibility
because you're Black.
And, uh, when Black Barbie came out,
I was like, "No, I think it is possible for me."
So I… I don't…
All the haters out there can kick rocks because it did a lot for me.
Black Barbies did a lot for me.
[Kitty] Because I had made a name for myself, I was given a group
so that we could do even more dolls.
My name is Stacey McBride-Irby,
former Barbie designer.
As a little girl, I loved playing with dolls.
Barbie was my favorite.
So that's what made me wanna be a fashion designer.
There was a newspaper article from Los Angeles Times
featuring Kitty Black Perkins.
My dad saved the newspaper article for me
because he wanted to inspire and empower me.
When I got into the garment district or industry in the early '90s,
I didn't see many people that looked like me.
But I didn't really have a plan B.
I brought out that newspaper article of Kitty Black Perkins.
I cold-called her.
-Hey! -Hey!
[Stacey] How you doing?
When I first saw Kitty, she had this white business suit on,
and she had this big curly hair,
and I'm like, "Oh my God, she's like
angel-slash-actress-slash-Barbie."
I know she has a convertible, so her hair can blow in the wind.
I don't know. It was just something about you.
The interview went great. She gave me an assignment.
I had to go home and buy a Barbie doll
and create a fashion for this Barbie doll.
And when we were sitting, talking about what her expectations were,
what her goals were and all of that,
um, Stacey pulls out this folder.
She had all these articles
that she had clipped from the newspaper about me.
She tried to make it look like it just kinda fell out.
-But it did. -Wait, wait.
She deliberately dropped it so that I could see it.
I wanna tell you, that got you the job.
She was very ambitious.
Um, had a lot of great ideas.
And so I just hired her.
[Stacey] So I remember the first time
Kitty took me kind of on a tour,
and I met your aunt Mae, and she was so bubbly.
Kitty introduced me,
so every time I went over to the corporate, uh, building,
she would say, "Hi, Little Kitty."
[laughs] I'll never know if she even knew my name was Stacey.
I became a receptionist in '89,
and I left in '99.
I was able to meet people from all over the world.
The best thing about communicating with people is a smile.
She just had so much energy, and it was nice to see another Black woman
within the corporate building in Mattel.
I learned everything, actually, I needed to know in the toy industry
from Kitty Black Perkins.
[Kitty] I hired her in as a designer.
I hired another Black designer.
His name was Thomas Quinn.
I just mentored them to do their own thing,
and, uh, they were… they were great.
[Stacey] After approximately two years,
I was petitioned to come to one of the other Barbie teams.
It was a little scary, but I was excited.
I felt like I was ready,
but it was just taking me to a whole different world
because now I have to compete on my own.
[Kitty] I retired from Mattel in 2003.
When I left,
Stacey took on a major role,
which was great.
♪ Don't you know why ♪
♪ I wanted to be an AKA ♪
♪ An Alpha Kappa Alpha ♪
♪ I wanted to be an AKA ♪
[Stacey] One of my colleagues,
he was like, "Stacey, we have this AKA doll."
Like, you know, "Do you wanna design it? 'Cause I don't know anything about it."
I'm like, "Yes, I would love to!"
[Ashley] Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated was founded in 1908.
So this was a hundred… This was like a centennial doll.
It was like a collector's item.
These are some of the original sketches that I created.
One was called the Contemporary Goddess.
One was the Businesswoman.
And one is… She's going to a Greek gala.
And the AKA sorority,
um, they actually wanted all three,
but we were only able to produce one.
People were looking for it.
I wasn't at Mattel. They were calling me.
It was sold out.
[Lagueria] Do you have the doll?
I do. Just like I have everything that involves Kamala.
It's, like, you have to have it. This is, like, a big… It's a big deal.
[Stacey] This was a doll that I created on my own.
I did research, and it felt good. It meant something to me.
And that's when I really got excited about what could be next.
That's when So In Style was born.
Hi, my name is Sierra, and this is my mom, Stacey.
[Stacey] Sierra actually inspired me
to design this African American line of Barbie dolls
because I wanted to give her dolls that looked like her,
reach girls in my community,
and give them dolls that they could relate to.
My daughter, at the time, was not playing with Barbie,
and I didn't understand it, as a Barbie lover.
How Mattel would work, marketing would tell us an idea,
and we would create from that idea.
And then we'll get from marketing,
"Oh, we need a Black doll as well."
So not all of them got Black dolls.
But then the retailers might not choose the African American doll.
I wanted to create a line of dolls that the retailers couldn't say no to.
The big sister would mentor her little sister
into math and music and cheerleading and science
or art and journalism.
So I wanted to have a fun aspect to them,
but I wanted them to be educated as well.
The Mattel African American Forum
kinda helped champion it.
Stephen came out with the logo.
David came out with the "So In Style, S.I.S."
The packaging designer, she and I went shopping
at the Slauson Swap Meet for inspiration.
So it was a whole team of us kinda building this out,
and it… it felt great.
My daughter loved playing with these dolls.
It was nice to see something that I created
making my daughter have so much joy.
It was a very intentional, uh, mission for my mom
to make sure that my sisters and I
saw ourselves in the toys that we played with.
So she only purchased, uh, Black Barbies for us.
It was made very clear to me from very early on
that there were not gonna be any white dolls in our house.
I used to make my own, uh, hijabs, uh, for my dolls, growing up.
Especially if, uh, you know, I was playing with the cars.
I couldn't get in without my hijab on. You don't wanna mess up your hair.
I don't think, for me, they were dolls.
They were representations of who I wanted to be at a certain point.
So, you know, they were doctors, lawyers, flying all over the country. Doing stuff.
I think about what I do now, which is tell stories
about powerful, interesting women living these exciting lives.
I was doing that when I was five.
If Kerry Washington in Scandal is not a Black Barbie,
down to the outfits and the dress-up and the clothes,
I don't know what is, really.
I go by Byronique Barbie.
So I am a self-proclaimed Black Barbie doll myself.
I have it tattooed on my finger, "Barbie doll."
I have a whole wardrobe, um, earrings.
I don't know which is which, but one says my first name, "Byronique."
One says "Barbie."
I do embody being the Black Barbie in my own way
as far as being very adventurous,
having many different career paths.
I've skydived twice.
I've swam with sharks in Hawaii.
Um, jet-skiing. I've parasailed.
For so long, I feel like it was a statistic
where it's just, you know, a white-woman thing
to be adventurous, to do all these exciting different things,
to have all these different lives.
But now, seeing a Black Barbie can do the exact same things,
it's, like, so important to me, and I try to embody that.
Being a boss-ass bitch, that comes with a lot of pressure, a lot of stress.
But being able to walk through life, and… and do it, you know, so effortlessly,
and I feel like that's what Barbie… Black Barbie embodies.
Like, being able to handle the pressure, handle the stress,
still keep it cute, keep it classy, keep it together.
Just, you know, do you,
and make every single day count, every moment count.
[Lagueria] So she's really inspiring for you.
She is, she is.
I… I really be going through my day asking myself,
"What would Black Barbie do in this moment?" You know?
Uh… [laughs]
[Stacey] Every year, we would do
the United Negro College Fund event.
They wanted to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Black Barbie.
I did not know Stacey was gonna do the 30th anniversary.
I came back to a celebration and found out that she did it,
and I was elated because she was the best person to do it.
Here is the first Black Barbie
that I designed for the 30th anniversary of Black Barbie.
And this is my rendition of the 1980 doll.
I wanted to jazz her up a bit
because I thought both would be auctioned off.
But they only chose to do the one.
I was inspired by the cutouts of the original jumpsuit.
She's a little… a little more sexy,
you know, so I put a cutout in the front,
and then, instead of a short jumpsuit,
I made a longer jumpsuit and cut out on the pants legs.
And then I added, you know, some rhinestone jewels.
And this is actually my Chandra So In Style Barbie,
which was the darker skin tone.
[feel-good music playing]
[music fades]
[Lagueria] I thought this was gonna be a simple story about stupid dolls,
but something about Black Barbie's story hits different.
I'm relating to a doll, y'all.
Like, I feel connected to her, to my aunt, Kitty, and Stacey
in a way that I have no words for.
Hearing this great legacy story of how representation can work
is giving me so much joy right now.
I'm actually excited and curious
to see who's designing the 40th Anniversary Black Barbie in 2020.
[Lagueria] Have you heard anything about them celebrating
Black Barbie's 40th birthday?
Which is…
-Next year. -[Lagueria] Yes.
Yeah, so I have not heard anything
about the celebration of the 40th anniversary of Black Barbie.
Um, it would be great.
Give me a call. I'd love to celebrate with you guys.
[Lagueria] Would the legacy continue?
I guess…
not.
Bill is the… the kind of person that grew up with Barbie.
He just kinda made Barbie his career.
I… I think I probably worked with him about ten years.
My name is Bill Greening.
I'm a principal designer on the Barbie Signature line.
I've worked for Mattel for 25 years.
I played with Barbie as a child.
Um, a lot of the dolls I played with were Kitty's.
I played Barbies with my cousin all the time,
and I remember playing with a lot of Kitty's designs.
We played with Pretty Changes. We played with Black Barbie.
We played with Pink and Pretty.
So when I think about my childhood relationship with Barbie,
Kitty is a big part of that.
I was really thinking of her original doll,
um, and how we could keep the elements that Kitty liked.
I really tried my best, I think, to try to link it up
but kind of just give it a little modern twist, I guess you could say.
-And you did a fabulous job. -Thanks, Kitty.
And it means… When Kitty blessed it, I was like…
-[both laugh] -That was the best compliment ever.
Yeah. I really wanted to honor Kitty's legacy with this doll.
And I will also say, too,
the designer, um, aspect of it,
it's hard to find designers that are targeting dolls.
[Bill] As far as designers,
we currently do not have a Black designer on the team.
I know that is very important for leadership.
And this is an opportunity
for a lot of little Black girls,
little Black boys,
to really focus
on replicating, uh, the Black Barbie.
Um, I am hopeful, you know, like, we have a future Kitty,
a future Stacey, another Stephen, like, coming in to really make an impact.
One of the interesting things
about Black dolls
is that, uh, when they are made
by Black people,
there is so much versatility.
There's so many different ideas that come out.
So many looks.
So many ways by which they, um, you know, create for their dolls.
It's very interesting
because, uh, you don't find, you know, like, cookie-cutter dolls.
Uh, you find dolls that have a lot of thought and a lot of creativity.
My name is Mason Williams.
I'm the senior director, global lead,
of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Mattel.
Been in the toy industry, game industry for about 25 years now.
I talk about Barbie with extreme pride.
I love the fact that there was foibles
and the fact that there needed to be called out
that we needed to be more diverse.
We needed to think about body image. We need to think about all that stuff.
In Mattel's design departments, we have a few Black designers,
but it's not much more than you would have thought
when it was… when Kitty was there.
While companies have grown,
we've not grown exponentially in our numbers.
Our numbers have grown, like, one over one.
Let's look at what the current constituents of the design departments
across the toy industry, first and foremost, okay?
Black people are the most underrepresented.
I don't think that that would be a surprise to anyone.
Because you don't know what… you can be something
if you've never seen it.
I go to career days. I've been going for, I don't know, 20 years, right?
And… and when I go… I put, "Mason, toy maker."
And I have always put that. I still do, even as what I do now.
Because I believe in, like, showing
that there are cats out there who are doing this.
We need to think about getting folks involved earlier.
High-school level. Partner with HBCUs a lot more.
Open up the… the ways that we're seeing the… the skill sets,
the education requirements.
Really investing in a pipeline of talent.
Now, again, it takes the moment to say, like, "Let's go do this."
And so that's the important piece.
And for too long, those conversations stalled out.
I am Tasja Kirkwood.
I am the head of Global Consumer Insights here at Mattel.
You know, I… I… I… talk to kids all day.
Um, a lot of what I do fuels the design and development process,
and I think that's really important when it comes to this topic specifically.
I do think the pipeline is super important.
I think it's about diversity,
but it's also about diversity of thought, right?
We all think differently. We have different experiences.
So infusing that diversity of thought into everything we do,
from design and development to marketing to strategy, whatever it is,
it's extremely important.
We just have to amplify what these jobs actually are
and what the possibility of impact actually is.
And I think that that's the thing, right? That's… that's what Black Barbie did.
She showed there were career possibilities,
and we just have to continue to amplify that ourselves as well.
[Lagueria] Yes, let's do this.
Let's jump-start those stalled conversations.
I mean, all of this started with a question
from a conversation between me and my aunt.
Now look how far we've come.
From one Black Barbie
to a world of Black Barbies
to more Black women becoming Barbies.
I am here for all of this. Yes.
So I remember when I got the message that Mattel had called and said,
"We'd like to make Shonda a Barbie. Would she like to be made into a Barbie?"
I was like, "Absolutely." That was so exciting to me.
It felt magical.
To be in a moment where, you know, you get the call,
and they're gonna make a Barbie in your likeness.
I just thought it was so exciting.
It was like, "Wow, I can be a part of this thing that is, um, iconic to me
in a different way because Black women are a part of it now."
So this is my Barbie. I cried big tears when I first saw her.
I love this doll. This is my doll, um, the Shonda doll.
I call her Glamour Shonda because she's all dressed up.
So this is my second Barbie doll.
This one, um, was the ballerina princess
that I played in, um, Disney's The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.
I was completely a part of the process.
Shondaland has an amazing sort of head of design,
and so… Sandie Bailey.
So Sandie came in and really had those conversations with Mattel
about what the doll should look like.
I would get things from her, and I would say, "My butt's too small."
And she'd go back and find a lovely way to talk about that.
The first thing that we did
was send them reference photos.
So Shonda and I worked to pull
maybe five to eight photos
that she really felt had the right hair, the right face and makeup,
in that time period that she wanted the doll to look like.
I wanted to make sure that if, you know, people were seeing this,
it was a representation of me as I am.
Not some perfect, you know, like, sanitized version.
I made sure that her waist was thick, you know?
And I made sure that, you know, she had a chest like I had.
One has a more… a little bit more of an hourglass shape,
um, and their butts are definitely different.
We ended up going with this one.
She's really gonna represent me.
And I remember, in the last iteration of the doll, she…
Her bust was not big enough.
They were like, "It's too late, Misty." I was like, "Well, pad that bra."
So we padded her bra. [laughs]
[Ibtihaj] You know, I was told as a kid that I had big legs, right?
And I feel like these legs helped me win an Olympic medal,
so I want my Barbie doll's legs to be really strong and to be athletic.
I'm going to be a second Barbie, which is amazing.
To have them come back and say,
"We want you to do another one more representative of the work you do."
I wanted her to look more professional.
I think the second Barbie was a great opportunity
for young girls to see, you know, a writer,
a woman of color in a position like that.
I've always said, you know,
you really have to be able to have the power to dream something.
You don't have that power to dream it if you've never seen it before.
[Monica] So the dolls that I buy for my daughters are all Black dolls.
I even try to buy dolls that have hair textures like them
so they can kind of relate more.
Now it's, like, normal. Like, "Oh yeah. Of course she has locs."
"Of course she has an Afro." Like, "Why wouldn't she?"
[Byronique] We have Barbie doll in a wheelchair. That's… that's great.
All those things are so necessary.
So necessary in the world we live in today.
I have a daughter. She's still young. She's seven.
The imaginative play is about the world, and it's about creating a community.
So she has more dolls,
and they are a variety of color.
'Cause I want her to know that, in addition to yourself,
there are many different people in the world
with different languages and different ideas
and different perspectives.
In so many ways, it can change the world.
I mean, that sounds, like, intense and so large,
but it… but it's true.
Even from a young age, children can learn about inclusiveness.
They can learn about diversity.
They can learn about different textures of hair and melanin
and all these things that,
if you're just looking at dolls and Barbies that look just like you,
your mind isn't gonna be able to open itself up to that.
Whenever I know a white person that's having a child,
they know… [laughs]
…that the gift I'm giving them is a Black doll,
a book with Black kids in it.
Same with my Black friends that have kids.
So far, all the feedback has been positive.
No one has ever been like, "Why did you give me this Black doll?"
Kids just love it.
[intriguing music playing]
[Lagueria] But how far do we still have to go?
I mean, Barbies are more inclusive now,
so I would like to think that little Lagueria
would have liked playing with these Barbies.
But I still wondered,
how much has actually changed?
My name is Amirah Saafir.
Um, I am a professor at Cal State Fullerton
in the Child & Adolescent Studies department,
and I'm really interested in how contextual factors,
especially school contextual factors,
impact how Black kids feel about their Blackness.
So the idea was really just to hear from kids
and to show them Barbies as they appear today
and to hear how they're perceiving them.
The inspiration from it was the doll test by Clark and Clark,
and so I'd say it was inspired by that but not modeled after it.
We wanted to be intentional about
not centering the conversation on Black versus white
but rather all the shades and shapes and sizes
that Barbies can come in.
And then the last piece was this conversation with experts,
where we have researchers,
people who specialize in a variety of different things,
to really get this kind of rounded perspective on what all of this means.
[woman 14] You ready?
[kids] ♪ Ooh, see you at the finish line ♪
[woman 14] Tell me which one is the prettiest one to you.
-The prettiest one to me… -[woman 14] Mm-hmm.
…I think is,
um, Brooklyn.
-Brooklyn's the prettiest? -Yeah.
-Why do you think she's the prettiest? -Because she has Black skin like us.
[Yeshiva] Oh, she does have Black skin like all of us.
That's true. That's very true.
And she also has the unique ability to play the guitar.
Which one do you think is the prettiest?
This one's the prettiest.
What makes this Barbie so beautiful?
-[boy] Because of her dress. -[Yeshiva] You like her dress?
Mm-hmm. Is there anything else about her that makes her beautiful?
-Her shoes. -[Yeshiva] Her shoes.
-Because I love her outfit. -[Yeshiva] Mm-hmm.
-And I love her hairstyle. -[Yeshiva] And you love her hairstyle too.
-I like her shirt and her purse. -[Yeshiva] Mm-hmm.
These beautiful shoes and her hair.
When they're talking about the Barbies and talking about their favorite Barbie,
a lot of them talk about the dresses that they have on
or the shoes that they have on,
and less about their skin tone.
So I guess I wanna kind of get you all's take on that.
And how you… what you think that means,
the way that they're thinking about race, for the salience of race.
Or how… if… if race is on the forefront of their mind, as kids.
Well, I work at a public elementary school,
um, and when they talk about anything remotely related to race,
they don't use the word "race."
-That's right. -I don't ever hear that word being…
I've never really seen it in the curriculum.
It's more like "ethnicity," "culture."
So those… And, like, watching the clips,
they would say words like "culture," "ethnicity," uh, "religion."
Things that make people unique.
Have you guys heard of something called race?
-No. -No?
-No. -What do you mean by "race"?
That's such a good question.
When I think of race, is… Wait. One of the Barbies that liked to race.
Oh, like a running race? Yep.
When you talk to your mom and dad and your family about race,
what words do they tell you?
-Mm-hmm. -"Do not judge a book by its cover."
Oh. So what does that mean, "Do not judge a book by its cover"?
Like a… Like a Karen that's making fun of you.
If I say the word "race…"
what comes to mind for you?
-Racism. -Racism comes to mind?
What's racism?
Um, when people judge you for, um, the color of your skin
and how you look and your culture.
They don't necessarily know the word "race."
-But "racism" popped out really quickly. -Right.
What does your family and your mom and dad tell you about being a Black person?
To be brave and always think you're a beautiful Black queen.
Ah.
My mom says I should be proud of my Black skin,
and if anyone else who doesn't have Black skin
asks, "What's Black girl magic?"
I'm gonna say, "Oh, it's not something you would understand."
They say it's just, like,
okay to be you even if you look different in the world.
Mmm. Mm-hmm.
'Cause you're still human like everyone else.
They say that it's not okay for cops to be mean to us
and… and put us on the ground because we didn't do anything.
Even though they weren't using the terminology we understand as adults,
they were telling us that they knew about race.
Someone was like, "Oh, Black Lives Matter. Black girls… Black girl magic."
So they're telling you, "I do know about race."
But we do need to focus on more giving them the language to talk about it.
[Yeshiva] It's the language, what they're being told
and what they're hearing in some spaces,
but it's not necessarily how they're living
and how they see other people living.
Because if everyone's the same and skin color doesn't matter,
then why are Black men being killed in the street by cops?
What is the role of Barbie in helping kids understand this?
Should it be Barbie or Mattel's responsibility
to be more intentional in what they're doing
to help kids make these distinctions as well?
-Yes. -You think so?
Because I think it's society as a whole's responsibility.
And I think there are a lot of ways that, um,
that Mattel can
make it more obvious about what race
or what ethnicity and what culture that a Barbie is.
Is there, like, a team, like, on Mattel that, like, focuses on the different…
What difference means and what that looks like?
I think that would be interesting. I think that is really…
If we're really thinking about change, it just can't be one person.
It has to be a team. It has to be very intentional.
-[Yeshiva] Yeah. -It has to be the right team.
Which one of these Barbies look like you?
-You would say this Barbie looks like you? -[girl] Yes.
Uh, I think this one looks a little bit like me
'cause she has, like, brown hair and, like, brown eyes.
Why do these two Barbies look like you?
Because sometimes, when I like to do my hair, I tend to put it in the back.
-She's pretty, and she has locs like me. -[Yeshiva] Oh, right.
Anything else that makes her like your mom?
-Yeah. -What else?
She wears wigs. It looks like she's actually wearing a wig.
[Yeshiva] Ah.
None of these Barbies really look like me.
Me either, actually.
What is the parents' responsibility?
What is our responsibility beyond just giving them the exposure?
At the end of the day, I say that Barbie is not gonna do anything
that you have not done, right?
Um, and that's on the parent end as well as Mattel's end.
So I don't wanna place onto Barbie
the work that… which we should be doing as a… as a society
to dismantle.
To me, the ultimate end work
of authentic diversity, equity, and inclusion
is to disrupt the violent institutions, the violent structures,
the violent dolls, doll-like worlds
that exist because of the long legacy of colonialism.
And until we are doing that work, then we just playing with ourselves.
My daughter's five years old, and she's…
Right now, she's a princess ninja who wants to, you know, slay cantaloupes.
She has a good amount of Barbies, and the thing that I'm proud about
is that she sees her Barbies as all the same.
So, you know, we got the full diaspora of colors,
skin tones, hairstyles, body shapes, you know.
That's… I'm proud of that.
And I think that when I see her play with her friends,
you really start to see the fact that kids gravitate to the play,
not to what they're playing with specifically.
I would bet that if you asked… If you grabbed 30 kids right now,
and they said, "What does Barbie look like?"
you might get 26 different answers.
Which one would you say is the real Barbie?
This one's the real Barbie?
This one.
What makes this one the real Barbie?
Because of her skin.
-Because her hair is blonde. -[Yeshiva] Because her hair is blonde?
That one's the real Barbie, and then that one, they made after
so the Barbies can look like some Black girls,
and they don't have to play with white Barbies all the time.
I do a lot of research,
and I watch a lot of toy shows and how they make it,
and, like, that was the first Barbie to ever come out.
When you go to stores, you see that they're…
-They're, like, the first Barbies you see. -[Yeshiva] Mmm.
And on commercials too.
"Who is the Barbie?" essentially, was one of the questions,
and they always pulled up Miss Malibu, right?
And what that suggested to me is
Malibu is centered,
and everybody plays out in proximity to her,
and that is the standard of the world.
Classic Barbie, Malibu Barbie, regular Barbie.
That ideal is the message that's presented to them
as what's normal, what's ideal, what they should be striving for.
And they're, uh, able to understand that… that Black Barbie,
that Latina Barbie, that Asian Barbie, those came later.
Those are extra. Those are so that we can see ourselves.
The societal structure of power and privilege
where Black people are at the bottom is clearly articulated to kids,
even if they can't use that language to describe it,
'cause they can see how this hierarchy exists
even in the toys they play with.
[girl] So if I had to choose,
I think it would be the regular one, Barbie,
because real Barbie has her own show.
I think that one's the original Barbie
because when I was over there waiting, I was watching the show,
and that's the first person that popped up.
[woman 15] So my daughter, when she watches the TV shows,
Black Barbie is not the main character.
We don't learn about Black Barbie's… Or any of the Black characters really.
We don't learn about their families. Um, really anything about them.
They're usually the sidekick.
It's almost like a present-day version
of the exclusion that was happening back when there wasn't a Black Barbie doll.
-Have you seen any of Barbie's movies? -Yes.
-I have. -You have?
Which movie have you seen?
I've seen the spy one,
the space one,
the regular one.
I used to watch her old Barbie Dreamhouse videos.
[Yeshiva] You did?
And, yeah, we watched, like, a Barbie movie.
It was, like, a mermaid Barbie, and it looked just like that.
I am Nachelle Jackson,
and this is my daughter, Kayden.
Hi. I'm 14.
And I was forced to play with dolls.
-You weren't forced to play with dolls. -[laughter]
Um, and so I can remember a time
when we were several volumes in to varying Barbie movies,
um, and we went to Target to go find a new Barbie doll.
I remember being on that aisle and saying, "Okay, here's a Barbie."
And I'm like, "Okay, this is Barbie, and she's Black."
Um, and I remember her being very adamant and saying,
"This is not Barbie because Barbie's not Black."
"Barbie's white."
I think they need to include more races to their shows.
'Cause they usually include just one race as the main character.
The show didn't come out till I was older,
so when I hit, like, ten. Nine, ten.
Um, I liked it better because it had a Black character in it.
That's probably why I never saw Barbie as Black.
Because she was always… Because the Black person was always the friend.
Like Nikki or Christie or something like that.
My name is Aydrea Walden, and I am a writer living in Los Angeles.
So I was a little familiar with the Barbie Vlog
before I got involved with it.
There had been a couple of pieces that just broke through into my radar.
I was familiar with Mattel.
I had done some work for Mattel on other shows,
and so I had a great relationship with them
when they approached me about wanting to do something
to talk about the issues that were going on in 2020.
-Hey, everybody. -Hey, everyone.
So there is a huge movement going on.
People, millions of people, across the world
are standing up to fight against racism,
and they're doing this because too often, and for such a long time,
people have been treated unfairly and, in some cases, even hurt by others
because of the color of their skin.
They basically said, "We wanna do this as a Barbie Vlog,
and if you could say something, what would your message be?"
People might think that my life looks fine,
but the truth is I and so many other Black people
have to deal with racism all the time.
I've always found it fascinating that two people can be in the same space
and have very different experiences based on who they are.
That was what I wanted to talk about.
Barbie and I had a sticker-selling contest on the beach last month.
We split up and went different directions to see who could sell the most.
Well, while I was on the boardwalk, beach security stopped me three times.
What?
They asked me all these questions over and over, and they called my mom.
I never told you, but that's why I sold a few stickers that day.
The security officers thought I was doing something bad
even though I was doing exactly what you were doing.
We took a few stories of things that had happened to me,
true stories that had happened to me in my life,
and made them age appropriate for the audience.
And I do do that a lot in my work, of taking bigger issues, adult issues,
and making them appropriate for young audiences.
Usually, when I talk about these things, people make excuses.
They say things like, "Oh, well, maybe you should have had a permit
for selling on the beach."
But those are just excuses.
People did these things to me because I was Black,
and they made the wrong assumptions about me.
And they don't make those assumptions about white people like me.
The setup was simple. It was just two friends sharing experiences.
So I also thought it was nice that we were modeling
two people talking about something
that might be uncomfortable for both of them.
These stories are uncomfortable to talk about and also to hear.
And I think the team did a great job with it.
I'm really happy with how the piece came out.
What's that… what's that Dave Chappelle joke?
You know, "What does Ja Rule think?"
[laughs] You know?
[laughs]
I don't think I'mma go and be like, "What does Barbie think about racism?"
Maybe let's… [laughs]
Let's… let's tee up Barbie.
Oh.
Okay.
Wow.
Little white Barbie is an ally. I love it.
I love it if it works.
If, you know, little white girls that, um, look up to Barbie
and wanna be just like her,
if they pay attention to that,
and they start pointing out racism to… you know, when it's happening
and standing up for, you know, their Black friends
or their, you know, Latino friends or anyone who might be different.
It might help in seeing it for them because a lot of times they don't see it.
I think the one thing that that video was missing
was there was no actual actionable advice.
Just being an… an… an open ear
doesn't really, like, uh, arm you with the tools to deal with what happens
when your friends are being teased at a sleepover.
I'm a teeny, tiny bit sad
that kids can't just be kids.
Doesn't mean it's not necessary because… because reality hits, and reality is real,
and it happens way, way, way too young.
And if this bit of reality meeting fantasy
can help build our world into being more kind
and less, um, innocuous to racism and discrimination,
then that is really beautiful, and it's worth it.
I think it's amazing that they touched on an important social issue.
I think, for, you know, kids that maybe don't have those experiences,
to learn from those videos,
and maybe they weren't having those conversations at home, that's amazing.
But my first thought was,
"But when has this character even talked this much on the show?"
She doesn't.
You know, she might say a word here and there,
but she's the sidekick all day long.
In order to have progress, you have to have… you have to take steps, right?
Progress is not, like, you know… is not done in a leap.
The… the representation has increased.
Last year's movie, Big City Big Dreams,
we have Barbie Roberts, Malibu.
She finally meets another Barbie Roberts from Brooklyn.
-You're from Brooklyn, as in New York? -Is there any other?
There is one I saw where it was kinda cute.
It was the white Barbie and then the Black Barbie.
They had the same dorm room.
Um, I think this is my room.
Um, it has my name on it. I'm Barbie.
But I'm Barbie.
-What's your last name? -Roberts.
[both] We have the same name?
But it was really cool how they were, like, showing,
"We have our melanated Barbie. We also have the white Barbie."
But they're the same doll,
but it's a different variation 'cause of the skin tone.
So the Barbie multiverse is now opened up.
[Antwann] The thought is that, "Hey, this is progressive"
because of the fact
that Brooklyn has made it to the screen, right?
Um, it doesn't matter how she shows up.
She's in the space, and therefore it is progressive.
I think it's interesting that we understand
Brooklyn to be in competition
with someone who's wholly inadequate to be on the stage with her, right?
And so this is the experience that many Black women
experience day in and day out, right?
Um, it's seen as progressive that we've hired you.
[pigeon coos]
[gasps]
[yelps]
[Antwann] One can be inadequate…
Whoa!
…in their whiteness
and is seen as equal to…
Runaway suitcase.
…in this particular case, an over-credentialed Black woman.
And once again, ballet saves the day.
They are placed on the same stage of competition,
and this is seen as progressive when that is not the case.
♪ I'll see you at the finish line ♪
[Antwann] Even though they tied, I still see that as "in service of."
How come Mattel could not lean in and say,
"All right, Brooklyn has the credentials. She has a talent. She's taking this"?
[Lagueria] I think for some of the children,
the media felt like it was still skewing not as inclusive.
There was just talk in terms of
"What would it take for, um, one of the Black characters,
one of the Latina characters, one of the Asian characters,
to be the hero of their own story?"
Yeah, I think we're working there. So we are working there.
With the expansion of the Barbie Roberts… Excuse me, Barbie Roberts Brooklyn.
Expanding that out is a big step.
With the success of the movie last year,
Brooklyn is getting a line bespoke for herself.
A whole universe for herself.
Where… where she's still friends with Barbie Malibu,
but we're building a world around Brooklyn.
The Brooklyn line is gonna have a TV… like a Netflix series,
and gonna have dolls,
and probably interact even more on the… on the vlogs and whatnot.
So it's expanding.
Parents today still talk about wanting a Black Barbie or a Barbie of color
to be, uh, a main character,
and so I feel like the legacy is around empower… empowerment.
It's around cultural impact.
Increased inclusivity and… and representation is happening.
Uh, I think the number-one thing to think about, again, is… is
pace matters,
and sustained pace that is achievable and shows market impact
is better than a moment in time.
If it doesn't…
If… if we don't see the… the progress at the speed with which I wanna see it
or you may wanna see it or whomever wants to see it,
that's okay because my expectation is… is to continue to push that.
And my realization is that if it moves a little bit,
I'm doing the job. We're doing the job.
I don't think she will be as successful.
Why?
Because we live in a…
-I don't wanna say it. -Say it.
[Kayden chuckles]
Um, we live in a predominantly white world, I guess,
and most successful people that you think of is
white, right?
And I think, since the demand is so high with the white people,
I don't think the Black Barbie will be a standalone character
without having at least some type of white character in it.
-Huh. So she couldn't stand alone. -[Kayden] Mm-mm.
I would want her to, but I don't think it will be as successful.
Uh, I'm disappointed to hear that, um,
she didn't… she doesn't think that it could be successful on its own
simply because it's a person of color.
[Lagueria] So that's my sister and my niece.
I was surprised to hear that's how she felt.
Are we really doing the job if it's 2024
and our kids are still thinking that the world is predominantly white?
We've come such a long way from Chapter One
and the lack of Black dolls.
Right?
Tell me about what's going on in this book.
[Beulah] 70th Anniversary Book.
They had a quote that I had quoted.
"I'm blessed because of 44 years at Mattel."
"I was most happy." Yeah, that was true.
I know Kitty's in here somewhere. What is she saying?
"Kitty Black Perkins, creator of the first Black Barbie and Holiday Barbie line."
"The best part of my job is that every little girl loves me
once she finds out what I do for a living."
[Lagueria] And here it is.
Let's see.
In 1980, as we know, Black Barbie was born.
-[Beulah] Eighty-two. -[Lagueria] In 1980.
-But let's see. Is Black Barbie here? -[Beulah] No, it doesn't say that.
They're pushing boundaries.
[Lagueria] They're pushing boundaries, but no mention of Black Barbie?
[Beulah] I know.
[Lagueria] I'm really sad
that Black Barbie didn't make the… the "Pushing the Boundaries" list.
-[Beulah] No, she didn't. -[Lagueria] No.
But Holiday Barbie did.
[Lagueria] While making this film,
I often thought of little Lagueria,
a shy, soft-spoken Black girl from Texas,
and what it would have meant to have seen something like this documentary.
Seeing it and wanting to be it because, like her aunt,
she wanted to ask the hard questions
and lay the groundwork for future generations.
And, like Shonda, she felt the burden of being the first, but did it anyway.
And, like Misty, she understood that it was indeed like a protest
being in this Black body saying you're a part of a history
that doesn't always include you.
And like Kitty and Stacey, she saw a need.
She saw a need to tell Black Barbie's story.
To put her on the timeline.
Because Black Barbie is important,
and her story matters.
As you can see,
I found myself intentionally inspired while making this film,
and I wondered how it would inspire you.
I think that's why films like these are so important.
Um, preserving that legacy, if you will.
I absolutely think Black Barbie paved the way, 100%.
[Kitty] I want everybody to know that Black Barbie reflects who I am.
My personality and all of that went into this particular doll.
I feel that I've been able to give some kind of joy
to every little girl who played with any of the dolls that I've designed,
and I think I've used my creativity,
which is God-given,
in a positive way.
I'm so grateful for the growth and the future of where Barbie is headed.
However, I also know that it wouldn't be headed toward the future that it is
if it weren't for Black Barbie.
And, again, so proud of Black women
for calling out things that are important to us
in spaces where we're so oftentimes silenced.
Like, that must have been incredibly difficult.
And so I'm excited,
but I first have to pay homage to how it even came to be.
I'm just so grateful for the legacy that has been created from it.
-♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ -♪ Hey! ♪
[Lagueria] Okay, so I don't hate dolls anymore.
I'm actually grateful to know their story because it has given me so much life
to highlight how Black women rise up and support each other.
These three women,
Kitty, Stacey, and my aunt, Beulah Mae Mitchell,
teamed up together
because when they didn't see what they wanted, they made it.
Hey, that's just what we do.
They were first but made sure they wouldn't be the last
by passing the torch to me now.
So, like them, I saw a need,
assembled an amazing team,
and finally made Black Barbie
the hero of her own story.
♪ I think they mad 'cause we fab ♪
♪ Oh, what a drag ♪
♪ Don't be so drab ♪
♪ Most imitated But they put us in a bag ♪
♪ I'm 'bout to put The melanated on the map ♪
♪ You mad, huh ♪
♪ We Black out tonight ♪
♪ We're the original gangstas ♪
♪ These are the facts of life ♪
♪ And we give you life So you should thank us ♪
♪ You should be acting right ♪
♪ But you mad uptight ♪
♪ Tryna strategize ♪
♪ But when we Black out Can't stop the fire ♪
♪ Can't nobody put it out Can't nobody put it out ♪
♪ When we Black out Can't stop the fire ♪
♪ Can't nobody put it out Can't nobody put it out ♪
-♪ Black out, let's put it down ♪ -♪ Na, na, na, na ♪
-♪ Hey! ♪ -♪ Na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Black on both sides That's how I like it ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na Na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Black on both sides That's how I like it ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na Na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Black on both sides That's how I like it ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na Na, na, na, na, na… ♪
I am so pleased to come into a studio and so… see such diversity.
Uh, years ago, when I first, you know, was early in politics, etc.,
uh, I didn't see this kind of diversity.
I didn't see makeup artists that knew what color to put on your face.
I didn't see people behind the camera,
interviews being done about people of color.
Things have changed quite a bit in the entertainment industry.
I love seeing you all. I love the diversity here.
Thank you for inviting me.
-♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ -♪ Hey! ♪
♪ Hey! ♪
I'm thinking that the idea came up at one point in time, several years ago.
Where is she?
[laughter]
Well, someday, there will be
a very mature Barbie.
[laughter]
♪ I think they mad 'cause we fab ♪
♪ Oh, what a drag ♪
♪ Don't be so drab ♪
♪ Most imitated But they put us in a bag ♪
♪ I'm 'bout to put the melanated On the map ♪
♪ You mad, huh ♪
♪ We Black out tonight ♪
♪ We're the original gangstas ♪
♪ These are the facts of life ♪
♪ And we give you life So you should thank us ♪
♪ You should be acting right ♪
♪ But you mad uptight ♪
♪ Tryna strategize ♪
♪ But when we Black out Can't stop the fire ♪
♪ Hey ♪
♪ Can't nobody put it out Can't nobody put it out ♪
♪ When we Black out Can't stop the fire ♪
♪ Hey! ♪
♪ Can't nobody put it out Can't nobody put it out ♪
-♪ Black out, let's put it down ♪ -♪ Na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Black on both sides That's how I like it ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na Na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Black on both sides That's how I like it ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na Na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Black on both sides That's how I like it ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na Na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Black on both sides That's how I like it ♪
♪ Black on Black Mixed with Black ♪
♪ Black on Black on Black on ♪
♪ We ain't no trend, that's a fact ♪
♪ We been the wave Y'all all just ripples in the back ♪
♪ Black on Black on ♪
♪ We celebrate Just call me cocky how we brag ♪
♪ It's facts though ♪
♪ I think they curious ♪
♪ Think they obsessed ♪
♪ With a girl like me, dipped in honey Oh God, we blessed ♪
♪ We got that bomb, huh ♪
♪ We got that thing, yeah ♪
♪ When you was born with it You cannot fake this ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na Na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Black on both sides That's how I like it ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na Na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Black on both sides That's how I like it ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na Na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Black on both sides That's how I like it ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na Na, na, na, na, na ♪